Design for a monument to Pope Clement XI

Design for an unexecuted tomb of Pope Clement XI Albani (1700-1721), from a time in Bracci's career when his connections with the family were increasing.

Includes elements which were reused in later designs e.g. the radical idea of a dynamic, standing figure of the pope; and the papal sarcophagus flanked by allegories of Strength and Religion. A scaled ground plan is included, and evidence of revisions and corrections reveal the working methods of the artist.

Provenance

Unknown European Collection; Christie's, New York, 2003; Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, London. The work has been vetted by the Art Loss Register.

Nominally inspired by Lucretius' De rerum natura, Piero di Cosimo's The Forest Fire takes its scientific subject and embellishes it with fantastical creatures from the artist's imagination: Bulls, bears, lions and deer-like creatures with human faces all flee wearily from a fire.

Rubens' portrait of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel dates from about 1629. The Earl was a great collector, and Rubens had painted the earl's wife a few years earlier on a visit to Antwerp. This drawing in pen and ink with a chalk base is unusually informal, reflecting perhaps the comfortable relationship between artist and patron.